School and wider community culture

This section considers various aspects of the secondary school IT culture and that of the wider community. The first of these is the beliefs and visions of the secondary school heads and IT leaders within schools and the ways in which they are reflected in schools’ IT plans. Factors taken into account in implementing IT in the school and the actual roles of the school’s leaders can also have an impact

Chapter 7: General Findings from Secondary School Sector

upon the school’s IT culture, hence these factors are examined along with the interactions between schools and wider community groups in establishing the IT culture. The next section describes the activities that schools have organised to promote an IT culture within the school and the wider community, and the final sections examine the extent and nature of the impact of IT on the school and community cultures and factors that can affect them.

7.4.1 School leaders’ beliefs and visions

It is an encouraging sign of the emerging IT culture in secondary schools that 90.7% of the school heads surveyed said their schools have developed ITEd plans (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 14c).

From School IT Survey Item 1h, 96% said that their school IT plan or policy focuses on teacher training/development followed by teaching (93.1%), and then administration (83.1%) with extra-curricular activities being less common (59.8%). The most common goals for IT plans (Table 7.28, School Heads’ Questionnaire item 5) are concerned with making the learning process more interesting (92.9%), improving students’ learning outcomes (89.2%), strengthening students’ initiative, independence and sense of responsibility in learning (81.7%). The least common are strengthening or developing co-operation among students (55.3%) and satisfying the expectations of parents and community (50.5%). These patterns parallel those of the Preliminary Study, although the school heads surveyed in this Study do not seem to have placed the same emphasis on catering for individual students’ needs as was reported in the Preliminary Study. Interestingly, however, only slightly more than half of the respondents indicated that the goal of strengthening co-operation among students is important, even though this is an important component of the kind of student-centred learning that can bring about the other goals they did stress as important. Similarly, only 60.4% think that using IT to improve collaboration between different subjects to enable curriculum integration, or to use it as a way to bring about closer communication and co-operation within the school and between the school and community are important goals.

Table 7.28: Heads’ perceptions of importance of goals in formulating School IT plan (School Heads’

Questionnaire, Q. 5)

SD N % of heads choosing the option

Goals Mean

(0-4) Very

important

Quite important

Average Not very important

Not important at all

a. 3.3 0.7 370 41.9 47.3 10.3 0.5 0.0

b. 3.3 0.6 370 37.8 55.1 6.8 0.3 0.0

c. 3.1 0.8 371 29.1 52.6 15.1 3.0 0.3

d. 2.9 0.8 371 18.9 54.5 22.4 4.0 0.3

e. 2.6 0.8 371 12.4 42.9 37.5 6.5 0.8

f. 2.9 0.8 371 18.6 54.7 22.6 3.5 0.5

g. 2.8 0.8 371 18.1 48.0 27.0 6.5 0.5

h. 2.7 0.8 371 11.9 48.5 33.2 5.9 0.5

i. 2.6 0.8 371 12.4 46.9 32.4 8.1 0.3

j. 2.5 0.9 370 8.9 41.6 37.6 10.0 1.9

a. To improve students’ learning outcomes b. To make the learning process more interesting

c. To strengthen students’ initiative, independence and sense of responsibility in learning d. To strengthen/develop students’ analytical power/creativity

e. To strengthen/develop co-operation among students

f. To provide suitable learning activities according to individual needs g. To provide training to prepare students for further study or future careers h. To improve collaboration between different subjects and integrate the curriculum

i. To improve communication and co-operation among your school, parents and the community j. To satisfy the expectations of parents and the community

7.4.2 Implementation of the school IT plan

More than 95% of the secondary school heads indicated that they have adopted security measures and practices to prevent student exposure to unsafe or unhealthy information in implementing their school IT plans (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 17). 98.1% indicated that they encourage teachers to enroll for courses or participate in training in ITEd, although it is not clear from these data whether the training refers to skill training rather than training in the pedagogical use of IT. Only 77.4% indicated that they have defined learning targets for the implementation of the IT plan. Not many (14.3%) showed that they have used the school’s IT facilities to promote a community culture of IT use, by either allowing students to use school computers appropriately for non-study purposes or allowing public access to the IT facilities in the school. About 94.3% of school heads said that they have used IT in school administration and management and 79.6% for researching or analysing school data. 69.3%

had used it for inter-school communication and joint activities, but only slightly more than half have used it for communication with teachers and less than half reported that they have used it for communication with students or parents, and only 45.7% indicated that they have used it for teaching (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 2).

It was mentioned earlier that 99.7% of the secondary schools surveyed have school websites. There is some evidence that these are used within the school since 96.3%-98.2% of the students from those schools with websites said they knew about this. The main use within the school community was for communicating announcements. However as a means of communicating with the wider parent community the use is not so widespread. For example, as will be discussed in more detail in Section 7.4.5, only about one-quarter of the parents surveyed said they had actually looked at their sons’ or daughters’ school webpages.

In addition, 96.9% of the respondents (School Heads’ Questionnaire items 8 and 8a) said that their schools have intranet and more than 89% agreed or strongly agreed that the purposes for developing the intranet were to improve communication within the school, improve teaching effectiveness and to encourage students’ initiative, establish the culture of sharing and to improve school administration/

management. On School Heads’ Questionnaire item 8b the percentages of school heads indicating that they use the school intranet for a range of purposes were high: the highest being for storing teaching, training and learning materials (96.9%) and the lowest functioning as a communication platform for school and parents (62.1%). The school heads also gave high ratings for the usefulness/effectiveness of the school intranet for these purposes, with more than 70% giving ratings of effective/very effective for all items except releasing school news to parents (67.5%), releasing news/information about student associations or clubs to teachers, students and parents (69.1%) and functioning as a communication platform for students and teachers (69.6%) and for school and parents (48.5%).

7.4.3 Leadership roles

The average number of IT Team members per school is 2.9 and the average permanent and non-permanent teachers to IT Team members ratio is 8.9 to 1 (School Heads' Questionnaire item 14a).

In 54.8%-58.1% of the cases the responsibility for overseeing all ITEd related activities in the school falls to the IT coordinator and the IT team (School Heads' Questionnaire item 14b). Also, 97% of the heads reported that their IT team participated in formulating the school IT plan (School Heads' Questionnaire item 14d). The instances of community members from outside the school participating in the formation or implementation of school IT plans are extremely low (2% or less). 97% of the school heads agreed or strongly agreed that their role is to allocate IT resources properly and 94.6% or more agreed or strongly agreed that their own role is to set clear objectives and guidelines, encourage and motivate teachers to make appropriate use of IT in teaching, provide sufficient training and professional development and support to teachers, and to integrate IT into the school-based curriculum.

84.8% agreed or strongly agreed that their role is to promote online learning (School Heads’

Questionnaire item 9a). This is consistent with the findings of the Preliminary Study. Fewer secondary school heads said they see it as their role to promote online communication within the school (76.2%, although this is still a reasonably high proportion), and lower again are roles beyond the immediate

Chapter 7: General Findings from Secondary School Sector

school community such as making the school an exemplary model (61.2%) and sharing of experiences with others outside the school community (51.1%). The IT team members' self-perceptions of their roles (IT Team Members' Questionnaire item 3) follow similar patterns to the school heads, although the percentages are slightly lower. 91% or more of the IT team members expressed strong opinions about their role in encouraging, supporting and organizing professional development for teachers and more than 79% rated various aspects of participating in the formulation and implementation of the school's IT policy.

7.4.4 Activities to promote IT culture

There is a wide range of activities described in the EMB Documents that have been designed to encourage students to use IT in various subject areas, to develop higher order thinking skills and to understand society better and become better citizens. From the EMB Document analysis it was revealed that in a survey of 277 secondary and 487 primary and special schools, most schools indicated that they were willing to work with PTAs and local communities or NGOs to provide facilities for parents but not to the public due to concerns about human resources, security and maintenance. It was reported in the EMB Documents that in the 1999-2000 school year some 1000 schools had utilised the incentive grant to open up their computer facilities after normal school hours (in 2001-02 this was $14 665 for an aided school and 208 hours of overtime work at Workman II level for a government school).

98.9% of the surveyed secondary schools indicated that they had done at least one of the listed activities (School Survey, item 4b) to promote IT culture during the two years prior to data collection.

95% of the surveyed schools had organised IT-related extra curricular activities for students, 72.8%

had organised IT courses for parents and 73% had organised IT competitions. Other than that, very few activities organised by the school were reported.

The School IT Survey data appear to be understated when compared with the School Heads’

Questionnaire. When asked to show the activities in which the school had engaged in the year prior to data collection (Table 7.29, School Heads’ Questionnaire item 10), 98.1% of the school heads made a strong claim for encouraging students to make use of IT in their daily lives. More than 73% indicated that they occasionally/always encourage IT culture within the school community of staff and parents to some extent through providing IT courses for parents (73.1%) and holding experience-sharing staff meetings (79.1%). There is some suggestion of participation in community activities such as participating in public exhibitions of competitions on IT or ITEd (68.7%) and holding or participating in experience-sharing meetings with other schools (64.9%). Apart from these, only about one-third or less indicated that their schools have participated in activities that will engage the community beyond the school and parents.

Table 7.29: Frequency of engagement in activities to promote IT culture in the past year reported by school heads (School Heads’ Questionnaire, Q. 10)

Activities % of school heads choosing the option N

Always Occasionally Rarely Never Encouraged students to make use of IT in their daily lives 67.1 31.0 1.9 0.0 368

Provided IT courses to parents 11.1 62.0 18.2 8.7 368

Provided IT courses to the community 2.5 14.7 31.3 51.5 367

Made school IT facilities accessible to parents/public 3.0 26.2 24.8 46.1 367

Provided IT support to parents/the community 2.5 31.8 31.5 34.2 368

Co-operated with other schools through computer networks 1.4 36.2 35.4 27.0 367 Held public exhibitions or competitions on IT/IT in Education 2.7 21.3 27.6 48.4 366 Participated in public exhibitions or competitions on IT/IT in

Education

13.4 55.3 19.6 11.7 367

Held experience sharing meetings for school staff 16.6 62.5 17.9 3.0 368

Held/participated in experience sharing meetings with other schools

8.5 56.4 26.4 8.7 367

When making comparisons to corresponding questions in the Preliminary Study it is encouraging to see that there has been quite an increase in the percentage of school heads who indicated they had made at least some attempt to organise activities for parents and the community. The number of schools providing IT courses to parents has risen from 77.4% to 91.3% and the number providing IT courses to other people in the community has risen from 18.2% to 48.5% of respondents. Similarly an increase from 26.4% to 65.8% of schools reported that they had provided IT support to people other than teachers and students, such as parents and the general community. 73% of responding schools said they had co-operated with other schools through computer networks, compared to 40.7% who claimed in the Preliminary Study to have done this, and 51.6% said they had held public exhibitions of competitions on IT or ITEd, compared to the figure of 24.5% reported in the Preliminary Study. In the School Visits and interviews there were no examples cited of schools opening their facilities to the wider community – although there was a sense that it would be good to have community sharing.

7.4.5 Contributing parties to community-wide IT culture

On School Heads’ Questionnaire item 11, the principals were asked to indicate organisations with whom they had collaborated over the past year in organising/promoting activities in ITEd such as seminars, workshops and meetings. 31.8% said they had at least occasionally consulted local schools and 26.7% each of EMB and local community or commercial organisations. Very few had contacted local tertiary institutions, institutions in Mainland China or institutions overseas. Generally there is still some room for improvement, therefore, for secondary schools to tap into a wide range of organisations that can help to enhance the quality of ITEd.

It appears that the surveyed secondary school heads are of the opinion that it is the education-related institutions followed by the commercial organisations that enable the community to get in touch with IT (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 12). 83.5% of the school heads think that the EMB is making a considerable or great contribution to promoting a community-wide culture using IT. Around 70% think that local schools and Internet service providers are making a considerable or great contribution while 67.2% and 63.7% said the same of software/hardware service providers and IT application system developers respectively. In other words, the highest ratings were given to those who provide the services and resources. After this, 62% acknowledged the contribution of tertiary institutions, but only 45.5% thought that contributions were being made by commerce and industry and only about one-third thought contributions were being made by professional education organisations.

With regard to the parties from whom the school sought support to plan, install or deploy IT resources (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 15 and IT Team Members’ Questionnaire item 1), the most common, reported to be used by 95% or more of respondents were IT team members and school administrators. 95% of school heads and 84.3% of IT team members reported consulting other teachers.

97% of the school heads and 86.3% of IT team members rated the input of the IT team members as being quite or very useful and 86.3% of school heads/70.9% of IT Team members rated the input of school administrators such as the vice-principal as quite or very useful. The input of other teachers was rated quite or very useful by 74% of school heads/56% of IT team members who responded to this question. 42.6% of school heads/32.4% of IT team members reported having consulted staff from EMB or the former ED and 73.3%/60.2% reported having consulted board of school directors/school management committee members. There were very few reported incidents of schools seeking input from either students (37.3% of school heads/27.7% of IT team members) or parents (25% of school heads/16.4% of IT team members) for IT planning.

As mentioned in the Primary Sector Report in Chapter 6 this pattern of little support seeking from the general community is echoed by the interviews with Trade Association representatives. They indicated that they are willing to support ITEd through various forms of collaboration but that, as yet, they have not been invited by the Government or schools to do so.

To explore further the contribution of community resources, some of the student data presented in more detail in other sections warrants some discussion here. First, it is relevant to consider the extent

Chapter 7: General Findings from Secondary School Sector

to which HKedCity has contributed to the IT community culture. In 2002 it was reported by the Director of Education at the Hong Kong Digital Day Carnival that more than 3.7 million people had visited HKedCity, again indicating that it has a high potential impact. As reported in relation to Research Question Set 3, 63% of the secondary school teachers surveyed reported to have used this and 56.2% of those who had used it said they were satisfied or very satisfied with it. Students, on the other hand, did not indicate as high a use of HKedCity. Around 40% of S2 and S4, and 44.6% of S6 said they had used it, although more than 74% of those who have used it reported it as being average or quite useful. It appears, therefore, that there is further room to develop the potential of HKedCity with the secondary school community to promote an IT community culture.

The second area that can shed further light upon the community IT culture is the locations where students use computers outside their schools and homes, discussed in relation to Research Question Set 1 (see Section 7.1.3). Less than 5% of secondary students use community centres or youth centres and less than 23% (between 10.3% and 22.5%) use cyber cafes. Libraries are more popular locations with secondary students (between 19% and 26.4%). However, all of these community locations are used less frequently for IT than other people’s homes (between 36.4% and 42.7%).

7.4.6 Impact on school administration and communication

More than 87% of the school heads agreed or strongly agreed that ITEd has had an impact on school administration or management with respect to improved communication within and outside the school, improved management of student and teacher records and improved management of teaching and learning resources (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 9e).

However, when we look at parent involvement, we can see that their use of IT to communicate with the school community is low. Only around 6% of the secondary school parents surveyed (Parents’

Questionnaire item 7) said they have participated in IT or computer courses or seminars organised by their children’s schools. Of the 93.3% to 95.6% of parents who said they had not participated, 8.4% of S2, 8.2% of S4 and 16.9% of S6 parents said this was because the school had not organised any such courses. 19.2% of S2, 22.3% of S4 and 27.3% of S6 claimed they did not know if any courses had been offered. More than half of the non-participants gave lack of time as the reason, around one-third saying that they are not interested. 69.6% of S2, 73.9% of S4 and 85.6% of S6 parents said they have not browsed the homepages of their children’s schools (Parents’ Questionnaire item 5). Again lack of time was given as one of the major reasons for not doing so (between 24.2% and 33.7%), the other being lack of knowledge about the necessary IT skills (between 43% and 43.8%). Around 97% of parents have never communicated with their children’s schools through email (Parents’ Questionnaire item 6), with 42% to 52.1% citing lack of the necessary skills, 32.8% to 42.7% citing lack of need to do so and 28.4% to 30.9% citing lack of time. Only between 8.7% and 13.4% of responding parents said they have not communicated because the school does not have any IT communication channels (Parents’ Questionnaire item 6_1).

Nevertheless, the potential exists to develop the use of IT as a means of communication. Between 72.3% to 77% of the parents who have browsed the schools’ homepages believe it has enhanced their knowledge about the school (Parents’ Questionnaire item 5a) and 78.7% of S2, 69.5% of S4 and 70.3% of S6 parents of those who have used email to communicate with the school have found the outcomes to be quite or very satisfactory (Parents’ Questionnaire item 6_2). Hence, as with the primary school data, there is a fairly strong suggestion from these secondary school data that IT can potentially improve home-school communications for those parents who have the time and the skills to utilise it.

7.4.7 Factors affecting IT culture School policy and planning

More than 93% of the secondary school heads and IT team members indicated that they have taken into account a full range of factors when planning, installing and deploying IT resources: school financial situation and teaching effectiveness were all rated as quite or very important. More than 90%

of the school heads and more than 80% of the IT team members’ gave the same rating to environment, allocation of manpower, and teachers’, students’ and curriculum needs (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 16 and IT Team Members’ Questionnaire item 2). 76% of the school heads and 66.7% of the IT team members rated EMB policy as quite or very important.

Parents’ attitudes and beliefs

51.5% to 64.3% of the responding parents said they would welcome the use of IT and computers in teaching in their teenagers’ schools quite or very much, with another 31.1% to 41.4% saying they would welcome it slightly (Parents’ Questionnaire item 8). Comparatively speaking secondary school parents seem not to be so confident that IT can improve their children’s interest in learning (between 52.6% and 65%) – they are more interested in the fact that the application of IT is becoming increasingly popular in daily lives (between 83.4% and 87.4%) and the ways in which it can impact upon their futures (around 77%). 71.5% to 79.1% of the parents said they agree or strongly agree that ITEd can help to strengthen students’ ability to use IT and 66.5% to 72.2% said they agree or strongly agree that it can help to strengthen students’ confidence to use it (Parents’ Questionnaire item 9).